By. Lilibeth, BDS Consultant from Philippine
Ibu Peni is a fifty year old simple and humble woman leader in her village in Cileungsi, Bogor. She is married to Bapak Neman a rice farmer. They bore three children, two are married and all the three children are working.
In 2002, a Micro-finance Collection Officer from Branch Office in Cileungsi, Bogor went to organize at least three groups in he village of Ibu Peni. She started to be a member of the Al. MUNAWAROH group one of the three micro-finance groups in that same year. She is now a member for nine years. She was selected to be the group leader. They had several meetings and other group activities in those early years.
Initially, Ibu Peni was granted with a Rp.1,000,000 loan purposely to start her small “warung” . With this amount she said that it was not really enough to start, however, she was able to raise her counterpart. Thus, in that same year she started her “warung” with at least basic commodities such as canned goods, noodles, rice, and veggies as the first goods she sold.
Her “warung” is adjacent to her house. Because of her good performance on re-payments and for her continuous savings deposits, she was able to borrow until the 9th year (9th year is 2010). The schedule of releases is as follows:
• 1st loan, 2002 – Rp.1,000,000
• 2nd loan, 2003 – Rp.1,300,000
• 3rd loan, 2004 – Rp.2,000,000
• 4th loan, 2005 – Rp.3,000,000
• 5th loan, 2006 – Rp.3,500,000
• 6th loan, 2007 – Rp.4,000,000
• 7th loan, 2008 – Rp.4,000,000
• 8th loan, 2009 – Rp.4,000,000
• 9th loan, 2010 – Rp.4,000,000
Her inventories increased as she rolled over her proceeds from the sale and income of her business augmented by the yearly loan from the micro-finance service of Bina Swadaya. Likewise, other commodities were added to her inventories as demands had also increased. Her “warung” has successfully expanded over the years.Moreover, as an improvement to the “warung”, display racks and shelves were built to accommodate the other goods for sale.
As of 23 June 2011, she has an outstanding loan of Rp.832,000 (92.44 USD) and a savings deposit of Rp.1,388,000 (154.22 USD). Since she started her savings deposit, she only withdrew three times. This was used for her child’s wedding.
There were also times when she was offered credit by the “bank keliling” but she said she never dipped her shoes into this kind of financing. She likes the micro-finance service of Bina Swadaya. She said it will only cause her headache if she will try the “bank keliling”. Aside from collecting daily, the “bank keliling” will charge higher interest rate with forty days loan duration only. Another burden according to her is that 10% will be automatically deducted from the loan proceeds. These things according to her will really cause her headache. So she opted to patronize the service of Bina Swadaya. Also, she never had problems with Bina Swadaya since she started to avail of the micro-finance service. And, she will continue to avail of the service to expand her “warung”. Her only hope is for Bina Swadaya to increase the succeeding amount of loans.
From her “warung”, she was able to send her children to school. This was also augmented by the proceeds of her husband’s sale from his agriculture produce. Moreover, she was able to acquire three additional motorcycles, initially she has one. These motorcycles are used to ferry her goods for sale from the central market of Cileungsi. For now she has her own motorcycle to load her goods compared before that she has to rent motorcycle to bring the goods from the market to her “warung”. These motorcycles are also used by her children in going to work.